What I Mean To You
by Hushbye Hayley
Summary: /Inspired by the song Volcano by Damian Rice/ Matt and Mello are caught in a place they cannot escape alone. Mello is in an endless whirlpool of grief, while Matt is caught in the memories of their past. MxM/AU/Multichap/Song inspired chapters/rating changed to M
1. Chapter 1- Oblivion

**A/N: Hello, and welcome to a new MxM AU! This will be called What I Mean To You, inspired by the song Volcano by Damian Rice. It's a great song, you should go listen to it. But every chapter will be inspired by a different song, all of them songs I love and all of them suit MxM. This just the start, and I have a vague idea of where this story will go. Plans will come! I'll ask some of my friends to beta it, they're really good authors, they're just all too shy to come on here XD  
~Hushabye**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Death Note or the characters**

What I Mean To You: Chapter 1- Oblivion  
"_When oblivion is calling out your name,  
You always take it further than I ever can._" -Bastille.

Why does he spend so much time in front of the mirror? I never understand. Before, he was so concerned about his appearance, and that was a valid excuse. But now, he spends his time standing there, just... looking sadly at his reflection, as if he looks hard enough, the scar will disappear.  
I tell him it's getting unhealthy, the amount of time he spends there. His eyes used to be bright. Now they're dim, darkened by grief and pain, and they're getting duller everyday.  
I don't understand Mello. I mean, I love him, but he is a vast, complex puzzle. If I had... if I was in his circumstances, I would avoid mirrors. So I would never have to look at my... burns.  
He thinks he's ugly. I tell him every day he's not, that he's beautiful, but does he listen? Well, that's certainly one thing that hasn't changed.  
Even chocolate will not draw him away from the mirror. I have tried everything I can think of. Sometimes, from sheer exhaustion, he lets me feed him or take him to bed, but not very often.  
He hasn't allowed me to get him outside yet; I think he doesn't want people to stare. To be honest, I don't blame him. Everyone stares. Everyone stared at us anyway; to be openly gay in such a homophobic community is like saying, in front of the entire town, that you want to be exiled from the community.  
Luckily, our friends are loyal. One sixth of them isn't quick to judge at all, two sixths of them secretly drool over 'yaoi' (yes, they are the girls) and the remaining few are actually gay themselves. They just don't have the balls to come out to the entire town the way we did.  
Not that we meant to.  
It was my damn sister's fault.  
I walk forward and wrap my arms around Mello, gently brushing a kiss on the right side of his face, where the scar isn't.  
His eyes close, shutting me out.  
I need to talk to him. That almost worked last time.  
"Hey, Mels?" I ask, resting my head carefully on his shoulder.  
He doesn't respond. He just continues staring into the mirror, fingers fiddling with his crucifix absently.  
"Remember when we met?" I try and continue.  
This time, my words reach him. His eyes open, and he smiles.  
"It was raining." he murmurs. An icy hand clutches at my heart. I remember that, too.  
Sitting in the rain, waiting for a mother who would never come. Eventually giving up and walking home, kicking the puddles up in front of me. Letting the water soak me, pretending the water on my face was the rain. And then, something moved in the pouring sheets of water: a light. Or, at least, that's what it looked like, with my eyes blurring from the tears and the heavy rain. I soon realised it was a mop of blond hair, just as soaked as mine was, pelting straight for me. The hair belonged to a boy, running with his head down to protect him from the rain. Head down, so he didn't see me. So he ran into me.  
"Hey!" I yelled. "Watch where you're going, idiot!" The boy looked up, and I realised his face was just as stained with tears as mine was. We were standing under a lamp post. His hair looked gold, slicked down with water, and lit with the soft hue of the streetlight.  
The boy's eyes went from scared, hunted to furious in a matter of seconds.  
"You shouldn't have been in my way!" he snarled. Something in those eyes, something feral, made me back away. I mumbled an apology. The boy snorted, and looked away, then strolled up the road to the nearest bench. I found myself following him. "What do you want?" he hissed, hostile, when I sat down next to him.  
"I just want somewhere to stay until the rain stops." I almost whispered the reply. He was... scary, but kind of impressive, despite the fact that he didn't look older than me.  
The boy snorted again, and extended a hand almost courteously. "I'm Miheal."  
Surprised, I shook it. It felt strange, like we were playing at being adults. "I'm Mail."  
It then occurred to me that we were both ignoring the tears on one another's faces.  
I was going to ask something about the tears, but he beat me there. "Why are you out here in the rain?"  
I didn't want to answer, not really, not to a complete stranger, but there was something about him that made me feel... comfortable about baring my soul to him. So I answered. "It's my birthday. My mum promised she'd come and get me before my little sister, but she didn't. I waited and waited and just decided to walk home." I tried to ignore the lump at the back of my throat, but it wasn't going away. I just let the tears fall. "She promised! Why would she forget? I-I don't understand..."  
The boy, Miheal, looked at me, and said the two best words anyone had said to me. "Happy birthday."  
Out of all the things I had just said, he had picked up on the fact that it was my birthday. It made me happy.  
"What are you doing out here?" I asked cautiously.  
"Running." was the answer. I didn't ask anymore.  
We sat in silence for a few moments, before he turned to me."I've decided I like you." And then, he smiled. And for some reason, my heart melted.  
"Oh?" I was getting cocky, more comfortable. I raised an eyebrow mockingly. "And why is that?"  
He laughed, then stopped, and then smiled again. "There, see? You're the first person to make me laugh in three weeks."  
And then came the questions.  
"Miheal's a funny name. Can I call you Michael?"  
"What? No! How would you like it if I called you..." he was obviously trying to find some way to say 'Mail' funnily. So I helped him.  
"It's spelled mail. I'm a postbox." That caused him to toss back his head and laugh hysterically. I decided to ask him something else. "What's your favourite colour?"  
He eyed me. "What has that got to do with anything?" Without waiting for an answer, he continued. "Black, or leather."  
It was my turn to laugh, now. "Leather isn't a colour!"  
"Yes, it is! It's an... umm..."  
And, you know that you're going to be best friends with someone for life when, within five minutes of meeting one another at the age of seven, you are discussing whether or not leather is a colour.  
Ever since that day, he waited for me at the school gates, so I wouldn't have to wait for my mother.  
He got me my beloved goggles the day after, saying they were a late birthday present. I was so touched; they were just goggles, but at that moment, they meant more to me than any other present I had received that year, even more than the DS my parents had bought me. I swear, I've never taken them off since. Not even in bed or the shower.  
The day after that, I bought him a bar of chocolate. He tore into it like an animal; I was amazed.  
"Sorry." he mumbled through a mouthful. "Haven't had chocolate in weeks."  
Every day after that, I bought him a bar of chocolate.  
I'm still buying him chocolate, and I'm still wearing the goggles. I guess the lost, lonely little child is still inside me somewhere. But the real question is this: where is the child in Mello?


	2. Chapter 2- Lost?

**A/N: I hope you enjoyed the last chapter. I warn you, Mello may seem a little OOC in parts of this, but only parts XD this one is inspired by the song 'Lost?' by Coldplay.  
There will be no lemon in this fic as far as I can see, but there may be a lime. Please bear in mind that I've never written a lemon or lime before and it would not be very detailed or sexy.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Death Note or the characters. If I did, Mello would have decided to work with Near from the start and that would have saved a ton of lives. Wait, if I owned Death Note, L would have never have died in the first place.**

What I Mean To You: Chapter 2- Lost?  
'_Just because I'm losing  
Doesn't mean I've lost.  
Doesn't mean you've won.  
Doesn't mean I'm across_.' -Coldplay

"Mello, please. Come away." I'm begging now. But he doesn't listen. Or maybe he does, and one day, he'll turn around and throw it all back in my face. And then we'll laugh. And I'll probably cry. And he might too, but he will definitely laugh. He has to.  
Eventually, he does turn away from the mirror, and falls onto the bed. I sigh with relief. I can relax now.  
How did we get here? I almost forget some details. They're all so small, but all so very, very vital. Mello is my life now, as I'm sure I am his. Or was. His fucking scar is his life now. And the fucking mirror.  
But I need to think back- right back to the very beginning. I've already thought about how we met- was that some kind of mental preparation for what I know I have to do next?  
Because the truth is painful. And we've come so far. It just makes me want to cry, but I can't. I have to stay strong. And besides, I don't want my goggles fogging up.  
When we met wasn't really the start. It was when we stopped being Miheal and Mail and started being Mello and Matt that it really began. So I guess I must remember that.  
I was Mail for seven years of my life. Of course, my mother, father and sister still called me Mail at home, but I was just turning it into Matt in my head. Everyone in school called me Matt in a few weeks. Even the teachers changed the name on the registers to suit my fancy. But I will never forget that Mello was the first to call me Matt- or rather, Miheal was. I really can't remember who named who first.  
It started, however, with Mello coming to meet me after school. He'd been doing this for a few weeks now, but this time, he looked... sad. I didn't understand. Mello was strong. Mello was tough. He was never sad, or weak, or whimpering. I had only ever seen him cry once, and that was the day we had met. Neither of us had mentioned that at all, and I had never asked why he had run away from his home.  
We walked along the road in complete silence, except the beeps coming from my handheld gaming device I carried everywhere with me. At some point I had taken it out of my pocket, and begun playing. We got to the bench- our bench- and sat down.  
And then the stream of words flowed from Mello's mouth. "Hey, Mail, I need to tell you something. I've never told you the reason I ran away, did I?" Not waiting for an answer (he never did), he continued. "It's kind of complicated, but..." Here he stopped, and looked down at the ground. "Now I look back at it, it does seem stupid." I jumped, Mello was saying something he did was stupid? It must have been awful for even him to admit it. "But that doesn't mean I'm going back." Ah, well, then.  
"I come from a very Catholic family. You've probably seen my crucifix and heard me praying." I nodded, silent. "I realised early on that... that girls held no attraction to me. It took me a couple of years to find out the... the terms and the such. And that was when I realised what my parents and brothers and sisters and grandparents were saying. They didn't know that they were saying those things about me, they just... kept on going." I nodded, surprised at about how much emotion he was putting into these words. I honestly hadn't thought about girls or boys in that way before; I was only seven, after all. But I realised that Mello had been forced to grow up beyond his years, with the realisation of what his family was saying. "I couldn't take it." Mello snarled. "So, I ran away. I grabbed some money, said I was out playing in the yard, and got on the train the the furthest place I could find. Which happened to be here." He paused again, and looked up at me. "I'm glad I got off here."  
I nodded, smiled and pulled the bar of chocolate I had bought for him out of my pocket. "Here."  
He tore into it, and began snapping bits off with his teeth. "I heard a car going by, with the window down and the news was playing. And... I heard my name on the news. They're looking for a boy called Miheal Keehl. So I need to change my name."  
"Okay." I replied, pulling out my game again.  
"Aren't you gonna help me think of one, idiot?" he snapped at my apparent disinterest.  
I looked up and grinned at him, then switched off my game. "If you help me find a new name first. I don't like my one. Who wants to be a postbox?"  
He thought for a moment, then snapped out, "Fine. I dub thee... Matt. Happy?" And I was. Matt was a nice name.  
"Hey, Mai-Matt, can we think of one for me now?" Mello demanded. I grinned. This was more like him.  
"How about... I know! Melanie!"  
"That's a girl's name!"  
"Well, the authorities are looking for a boy called Mihael Keehl, right? And you kinda look like a girl, so if you pretend to be a girl called Melanie then they won't find you!"  
He gave me the kind of look reserved for the dirt under his feet. "What the actual fuck are you going on about?"  
I sighed. When Mello swore, he wasn't happy. Ha, that's changed. He swears all the time now. We were only seven, after all. "Okay, you don't have to pretend to be a girl. But Melanie sounds nice, huh? Something like that..."  
We sat in silent thought for a few moments. "Maybe it could be something you're not, like... I dunno."  
Mello gave me another withering glare. "Matt, what are you going on about?"  
"Like, if you were kind, we'd give you a name that meant mean, so if the authorities were looking for a kind kid, they wouldn't look at a kid with a mean name..."  
"Matt."  
"Hm?"  
"You are ridiculous. I just need a new name. That isn't a girl's name."  
"Mario?"  
"No. Just no."  
"Oh. I guess Bowser and Luigi are out of the question as well?"  
"Yes. Funnily enough, I do not want to named after one of your video game characters."  
"Aw..."  
There was more silence. It was so long, and Mello was so deep in thought that I got out my handheld again. His hair was very yellow. Yellow. I liked yellow a lot. It was a... mellow sort of colour. So unlike what the boy sitting next to me was.  
I absently reached out and took a lock of his hair between my fingers, causing him to snap out of his thoughts and jump away, shouting about 'personal bubbles'. But I had a name for him.  
"How about Mellow?" I asked.  
He stopped jumping around, and sat still, thinking. "Yeah, that's cool. It just... sounds wrong."  
We sat there in more silence. Until Mello spoke up. "Why don't we take of the w?"  
"What, so Mello, instead of Mellow?" The moment I said the name, it was his. It just was.  
He was Mello and I was Matt. It was funny because it worked.  
So I got everyone in school to call me Matt, correcting them when they said my old name.  
I tried to do the same at home, but my parents laughed and said this whim would pass. My sister just laughed.  
But my family didn't matter. They were just one part of my life, while Mello took up at least two or three parts. He was my best friend. If I'm going to be honest, he was my only friend.  
I'm surprised that I only started to think about him in... that way when we ran away, seven years later. I guess that is what comes next.


	3. Chapter 3- Lean

**A/N: Here's Chapter 3 of What I Mean To You. Yay, I submitted two in a day! I think there may be 12 or 13 chapters all together. You should listen to the songs the chapters are named after. When I'm writing each chapter, I listen to the song I've chosen for it on repeat. So, the song is kinda my inspiration for each one. It makes a lot of sense if I've heard a certain line at a certain time, but most of the time it's just that the chapter has the same kinda feel as the song.  
Disclaimer: I don't own Death Note or the characters. I wish I did.**

What I Mean To You: Chapter 3- Lean

'_Everybody needs a reason why they run,  
Everybody wants to know what they're running from_.' - The National

Nothing much happened in those seven years between our 'namings' and our frantic run in the middle of the night except that I got myself addicted to cigarettes. I then received a long lecture from Mello about those disgusting 'sticks of death' and how no one would ever want to kiss me again. I asked how he knew someone would want to kiss me in the first place. He didn't answer.  
It started with that infuriating game of Scrabble. I have no idea why my parents got me and my sister, Linda, to play it in the first place. I guess we hadn't been on good terms and they wanted us to be friends again.  
What people don't see about siblings is that when people are ranting about how annoying and evil their siblings are, they're really thinking about how they held them upside down and tickled them until they shrieked and then actually had fun with them.  
Linda and I had an on and off relationship. Sometimes, she was really sweet and drew me pictures of my favourite video game characters (I took the the one of Bowser with me when I left because it was truly spectacular) and I would let her play video games with me and I'd let her win because she got so happy when she did.  
Other times, we had huge arguments. She would often tease me about how she had more 'inspiration' and how she got the normal name while I was stuck with being the postbox. Actually, I think she was the one who came up with the postbox joke in the first place.  
Linda was being particularly annoying this time. She was one of those people who, when playing Scrabble, try to get away with the most horrendously and obviously false words. And I know she did it just to annoy me.  
"Aww, but Mail, I'm sure asx is a word!"  
"Okay, Linda, but what is an asx?" I was trying to keep my cool desperately. This was the fifth time she'd done this in one game.  
"I don't know, but I definitely read it somewhere."  
She was trying to get me to the point where I would flip, and smash the board or something. It had happened more than once. "I need some fresh air." I snarled.  
"Hey, Postbox, we haven't finished the game yet!" I had no intention of finishing the game.  
Outside, the streetlights had already turned on. They cast a ghostly, pale light over the pavement.  
I got outside, and fumbled around in my pocket for my smokes and lighter. I stuck one in my mouth, lit it, and inhaled, letting the nicotine flood into my body. I sighed.  
"Didn't expect to see you out here." drawled a voice behind me.  
"Hey, Mels." I said without turning around. I knew it was him, even without looking. He came and stood next to me on the pavement.  
"What are doing out this late?" he asked.  
"Escaping the perils of Scrabble with my sister." I answered. He laughed, and we stood in companionable silence for a few moments. "Shall we go to the bench? I don't really want my parents seeing me smoking."  
"You shouldn't be smoking at all." Mello growled, but we walked down the road anyway.  
When we sat had sat down, Mello turned to me. "What word did she try and say was real this time?" I laughed. Mello knew me far too well.  
"Asx. Spelled A S X. I can't even remember the others. But I do know that they were fucking ridiculous. And she knew they were fucking ridiculous." I took another drag of my cigarette.  
Mello nodded. He had spent seven years listening to me ranting about my little sister. It was when I did this that I realised how lucky I was. Mello had ran away from home at a very young age, and, years later, his family hadn't given up on the search. He now slept rough most nights; sometimes I managed to sneak him into my room, and we'd play video games and I'd give him some of my clothes and put his dirty ones in the wash with mine. It was a good system. I got a friend, so did he, and he got clean clothes and and hour or two on some video games.  
After about half an hour of talking about the kind of meaningless crap friends talk about, I had calmed down enough to go back inside and face my sister and the Scrabble board again.  
The moment I got back in I knew I had made a mistake.  
Linda had that look on her face.  
When my mum saw me, she pounced on me straight away like a tiger. "Mail, Linda tells me she saw you smoking outside." Shit! Linda had seen me smoking? Wait, did that mean she had also seen Mello? Had she told Mum about him? "I want you to give me your cigarettes right now."  
"But Mum-"  
"No buts, Mail. I don't want an addict for a son." Too late. I was hooked. "How long have you been smoking for?"  
"About a year." I replied, my head hanging. But inside, I was furious. I was fourteen years old; she had no right to boss me around. If I wanted to smoke, then I could!  
But I handed over my packet anyway. I had more. There was no doubt, however, that in two days time on Monday, she would search my room and find the ten packets I had hidden around the place.  
That was the first step.  
My thoughts were that I had to get out of there before Monday, when Mum would search for my smokes.  
I turned to Linda when my mum had left the room. "What the fuck did you tell her for?" I snarled.  
"You need to stop." was her answer.  
That was the second step: my little sister trying to take care of me. I mean, she was only twelve! What did she know?  
I turned around and stormed up to my room. I got out my DS and began playing desperately, fingers punching the buttons violently.  
"Mail?" My father's voice called from outside. I ignored him. "Mail, let me in." The door wasn't locked. He could come in at any time he liked. The door opened. My father stood there. "Mail, we need to talk."  
"What do you want?" I growled.  
"Your mother told me you smoke." I didn't reply, just continued playing. "You have to stop."  
"I don't want to."  
"Mail." Dad sighed. "I started smoking when I was your age and I only stopped a year before you were born." Did he think I cared? Perhaps that was why I was addicted. "I can honestly say that smoking was one of the worst thing I've ever done." I continued to ignore him. "And, Mail, I think you need to cut down on other things too. Like your video games. You naturally get addicted to things, Mail. I was just the same." I almost dropped my game. He wanted me to cut back on video games? What the fuck? Those things, apart from Mello and cigarettes, were the only things that kept me sane. So, they were taking away my games, my smokes, and if they found out about Mello, they would ban me from seeing him, I knew that for certain.  
That was the last step.  
"Mail, one last thing." I sat frozen on the bed, hands trembling with rage. "You are going to have to stop wearing those ridiculous goggles everywhere." And they had just popped one last step I there for good measure.  
My mind was made up.  
I was leaving.  
That night was Friday night. I glanced at the calendar on the wall. Saturday was circled with a fluorescent yellow highlighter, and had the words 'Mail's birthday' written on it. I had chosen yellow so I would remember it was also the seventh anniversary of me and Mello's first meeting, when we sat in the rain and talked about whether leather was a colour or not.  
Times had changed since then. We had both grown taller. Mello's hair was slightly longer, but he let me cut it every now and again. I had a thing for striped shirts and I smoked, and he had a thing for black, and leather, if he ever got to wear any. We didn't cry anymore. I didn't wait for my mum after school.  
Some things had stayed the same, though. Like the goggles. I always wore my goggles. And I always bought Mello chocolate. He did love his chocolate.  
Bearing this in mind, I knew what I had to get. I grabbed a backpack, and then, after a moment of thought, grabbed another. In one of them, I put the two sleeping bags Linda and I used for camping in the back garden. One of then was pink and had flowers all over them, but, hey, beggars couldn't be choosers.  
In the other one, I put a pair of old jeans, five of my beloved striped top, a handheld game and charger, my ten packages of smokes, a few pairs of underwear and, thinking of Mello, all the bars of chocolate we had in the cupboards. Then, I got out my wallet and, walking downstairs as quietly as possible, took all the change from my father's wallet and my mother's purse. There was about two hundred quid in there all together, with my mother, father and my own money put together. I left my phone; I wasn't going to need to contact anyone on that list.  
I opened the back door as quietly as possible. I had thought about writing one of those: 'Dear parents, I'm tired of life here, goodbye' letters, but decided against it. I just made it obvious by the things I had taken that I was not intending on coming back.  
When I got onto the street, I checked my watch. It was one thirty in the morning. I made my way over to the bench, where I knew Mello would be curled up under a coat. I was right. He looked so sweet when he was asleep, his feminine features coming to the forefront of his look now. If he had known I thought he looked sweet when he was asleep, he would have murdered me. I would have liked to have looked at him some more, but time was rushing by. I reached down and shook his arm.  
"Huh? What?" Mello rolled off the bench with a thump, and winced. Then, he realised what was going on, tried to grab his coat and make a run for it, until he noticed it was me. "Matt! What the fuck are you doing? It's the middle of the fucking night!"  
"Shhh! You'll wake up the whole street!" I tried to quiet him down.  
"I will not fucking 'shhh'! I demand an explanation! Now!"  
"I want to run away." I hissed. "Which is why I just woke you up in the middle of the night with a couple of backpacks. I can go by myself, but I brought a whole stash of chocolate and an extra sleeping bag if you wanna come wi-"  
I found the breath knocked out of me as he flung his arms around my neck. "Holy shit, Matt. Of course I'll come with you." he growled into my ear. Then, he pulled away and gave a cocky grin. "For the stash of chocolate, if nothing else."  
"Quiet, you." I sighed, throwing a chocolate bar at him. He unwrapped it, and bit into it aggressively. "So, where are we running to?"  
"Away from here. But I don't think we should leave this town. I mean, we kinda know it well, right?" Mello replied, snapping off a corner of his chocolate.  
"I guess." I answered. We began walking, knowing it was going to be a long night.


	4. Chapter 4- Cemeteries of London

**A/N: I'm changing this to M, since I think I may attempt a lemon at some point. There will also be some pretty graphic violence later on (BB will get involved. Need I say more?) This is more of a filler chapter than anything else. I had no inspiration to write it, which is why it's awful. Just another note: I've decided that this is set in London, one since Wammy's House was in the UK, two because I live in the UK and have quite a history in London, so know it quite well. I just imagine Matt with a British accent. I'm very proud of my British accent.  
Disclaimer: I don't own Death Note or the characters. I also don't own the songs used in this story**.

What I Mean To You: Chapter 4- Cemeteries of London

_'God is in the houses  
And God is in my head.  
And all the cemeteries of London  
I see God come in my garden,  
But I don't know what he said,  
For my heart, it was not open.'- _Coldplay

I hear Mello moan slightly in his sleep. What is he dreaming of, I wonder? The fire, probably, from the way he moaned. Can't he just stop thinking about it? I pick up my game again, and play. And I remember that first night we spent out on the cold, dark streets.  
We huddled into our sleeping bags (I had managed to end up with the pink flowery one) and tried to fall asleep, the street lit only by the light of my cigarette. It was only then I remembered it was my birthday. I was fifteen. What better way to spend it than in a damp, dingy alley with a dying cigarette dangling pitifully from my mouth. Then, I remembered Mello sleeping to my left. And everything was okay.  
I stubbed out my smoke, and turned around in my sleeping bag, trying to get to sleep.  
"Matt?" I had thought Mello was asleep. Apparently not.  
"Hm?" I mumbled.  
"I'm cold." Mello replied. There was a distinct draft rushing down this alley. I had guessed he would be used to it, what with him sleeping on a bench under a coat for the past seven years.  
"What do you expect me to do about it?" I sniped back, not expecting an answer.  
"Can I share your sleeping bag with you?"  
His question caught me off guard. "Huh?"  
Mello sighed, and rolled his eyes. I couldn't see him in the dark, but I... just knew he had rolled his eyes. I knew him far too well. "I'm cold, you're warm. Can I share your sleeping bag?" He said it like he was speaking to a baby: each word slowly.  
"Sure, I guess." I shrugged, not understanding why my heart rate had just picked up. I mean, we were just two friends on the streets, and he was right; we needed to keep warm.  
"Budge up." Mello hissed as he came over, after he had stuffed his sleeping bag back into the empty back pack. I did as I was told. We had to lie vertically, on our sides to fit. Mello looked down and sighed disapprovingly. "You had to choose the pink one, didn't you?"  
I grinned at him. He rested his head in the crook of my neck, close enough that I could feel his breath brush my skin. I gulped.  
Mello's arm wrapped around my waist and pulled me close. We were so close that I could feel his heart beating against my chest in a steady rhythm. Focusing on that, I felt my eyes sink lower and lower, until eventually, they closed.  
It was morning when my eyes flickered open. Mello was still asleep, and once again, I couldn't help but think how sweet he looked.  
There was no need to get up. We didn't have to go to school, we had no work yet, although that would have to change if we wanted money, and we just generally had nothing to do. It was a good feeling. So I didn't move.  
Eventually, Mello's eye lashes flickered against my neck, and he was awake. He looked confused for a while, before coming to his senses and moving away. He unzipped the sleeping bag, and got out. Wait- was he blushing? Why would Mello be blushing?  
I was so confused.  
But the thought soon disappeared. Mello was soon his old self, snapping at me to get my lazy butt moving and a square of chocolate in his mouth.  
I got up with a groan. We packed away, and I got out a packet of cigarettes. I smoked one as we walked.  
We didn't really know where we were going; we just had nothing to do. The buildings grew taller and taller the further we walked, and I had to admit, I liked this new change of scenery. It was very different from the quiet suburb I had grown up in.  
The city made me feel tall. It made me feel happy. It made me feel strong. When I had been here before on school trips, I had felt tiny in comparison to the skyscrapers. Now I felt they were urging me onwards.  
I let out a whoop, and pelted down the street, which was surprisingly abandoned for a city, until I realised it was only just past dawn. A few solitary stragglers strolled down the roads.  
"Matt!" Mello hollered after me. "Wait for me!" I ignored him, and raced on. Eventually, I felt Mello's hand close on the back of my coat, and we skidded to a halt. His arm around my shoulders, Mello pulled away, trying to look angry, but I knew he was smiling underneath.  
However, I pulled away again when I saw something. "Look! A river!" Ignoring his reply, I pounded down the road again, stopping at the edge of the mass of swirling water.  
"You'd think you've never seen a river before." Mello laughed from behind me.  
"I haven't. Not one this big, anyway." I replied. It intrigued me, this swirling mass of water. When I felt Mello's hand on my back, I thought he was going to push me in. To this day, I'm still embarrassed that I shrieked like a girl, and turned around and clung to Mello.  
He laughed so much. He couldn't even get out a reply, he was laughing so much. "I was gonna pull you away from the river, you idiot!" he snorted when he'd finally calmed down. I was still clinging to him. I stood back, and brushed off my coat. I didn't look at him; what little dignity I had left did not allow it. He was laughing about it for the rest of the day.  
When the night came, I wasn't tired. Something about the city at night made me feel like electricity was flowing through my veins. Mello, however, did not feel the same way. "Matt, stop tossing and turning. You're keeping me awake." That night, he had not asked to share sleeping bags. I sighed, and rested my head back against the wall. "Matty, is something wrong?"  
"No." I replied. "Just not sleepy."  
Mello looked at me, and then shuffled his sleeping bag over to me. This night, he had the pink one. "Are you feeling guilty?"  
Did he mean about leaving? Ha, no way. "Na." I said nonchalantly. "It's a good not tired. Like, a 'I wanna get up and do things' kind of not tired."  
"Oh." was Mello's reply. Then, "Do you want to talk?" He was being surprisingly considerate.  
"Okay." I replied, surprised. Why was he doing this? It was... so out of character.  
There was a moment of silence. "Well, go ahead, ask me something." snapped Mello.  
I gulped. I had a question, but I didn't think I was brave enough to ask it. "Are you religious?" I mumbled after a while. When Mello looked at me, confused, I stumbled over myself to explain the question. "I mean, I know you came from a Catholic family, and you have a crucifix, and you pray, but do you believe in God?"  
Mello thought for a moment. I had no idea why I wanted to know this, or why it was so important to me. I just had a feeling I should know, that it would help me understand Mello better. "Before I ran away from my family, I did. Then, after that happened, I gave up on actually believing in him. But I think I believe in him now."  
Confused, I looked at Mello. "Why now?"  
He turned around and grinned at me. "He gave me something I never had before. A friend."


End file.
